Bill Gates is funding a ‘smart city’ in Arizona

Everyone’s favorite chair-jumping billionaire just purchased 25k acres of land in Arizona to begin construction on a new ‘smart city’ dubbed “Belmont” (after one of Gates’ investment firms, Belmont Partners).

Gates has invested $80m into the 25k acre space — and when it’s complete, it will contain 80k residential units and a population of around 182k.

Okay, so what are we talking here?

Set just 45 minutes outside of Phoenix, the community-to-be plans to have all the trappings of a true city of the future: high-speed internet ingrained in the environment, congestion minimizing traffic lights, and newer, smarter manufacturing technology.

Gates plans to populate the city with around 3,800 acres of offices, stores, and homes while keeping around 470 acres for public schools.

In a statement, Belmont Partners said that the city will “transform a raw, blank slate into a purpose-built city built with a flexible infrastructure model.”

Flexibility is the future

But with the UN predicting that 2.5B people will migrate into cities by 2050, they all seem to have the same goals in mind: to bring a new, progressive focus into city livin’ by improving infrastructure for the new bodies who wish to live it.